With very rare exceptions they are as dead as
mutton, and much less nourishing. The upshot of our conversation was
that he thought me an incompetent professor, and I thought him an
unprofitable student.
There are many people in England to-day who praise the thoroughness of
the Germans, and their devotion to systematic thought. Has any one ever
taken the trouble to trace the development of the thesis habit, and its
influence on their national life? They theorize everything, and they
believe in their theories. They have solemn theories of the English
character, of the French character, of the nature of war, of the history
of the world. No breath of scepticism dims their complacency, although
events steadily prove their theories wrong. They have courage, and when
they are seeking truth by the process of reasoning, they accept the
conclusions attained by the process, however monstrous these conclusions
may be. They not only accept them, they act upon them, and, as every one
knows, their behaviour in Belgium was dictated to them by their
philosophy.
Thought of this kind is the enemy of the human race.
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